Bishop Joseph Martino Resigns: David Gibson on the Backstory and Health Care Reform

I last wrote (as well as I can ascertain) about Archbishop Joseph Martino of Scranton towards the end of March, when I discussed his attack on Vice-President Biden in a posting which notes that we had just begun to see the first shots in a “bitter war that theocratic right-wing Catholics who are more Republican than Catholic intend to wage against the new administration.”

In that posting, I argued that, as a body, the American Catholic bishops have—with notable exceptions—willingly permitted theocratic extremists to capture the center of the American church. I noted that the politico-religious agenda of these extremists is a mishmash of ill-digested Catholic theology and American evangelicalism, and that most U.S. Catholic bishops know this, just as they know that many of those promoting a right-wing theocratic agenda are badly educated Catholics. They know that traditional Catholic values are incompatible with many of the values of right-wing evangelicalism.

But they have allowed this mentality to grow, to represent itself as authentic Catholicism, as the only possible Catholicism, and have done next to nothing to correct it. They have allowed the American Catholic church to become captive to ideological operatives who promote political goals antithetical to Catholic values.

And not much has changed since I wrote that analysis in late March. If anything, things are growing worse, with open attacks on health care reform by right-wing Catholics (more on that in a moment) and the disgraceful sideshow out of Bedlam we’ve seen in recent days, as the self-professed guardians of orthodoxy have fumed over the choice of the Catholic church to give Christian burial to Senator Kennedy (for a sample of this discussion at its lurid extreme, see Christopher Nowak's recent thread of statements about the Kennedys and the funeral at the Grand Rapids Catholic Examiner).

For readers who want to follow what I’ve written about Martino, I suggest clicking the label with his name at the posting to which I link at the start of this piece. The “search blog” feature at the head of Bilgrimage is not working properly, by the way. It yields partial results for some search terms, but misses others entirely. If you’re relying on it to search the blog thoroughly, I’m afraid whatever is awry with it may cause you to miss information.

And now I want to update the Martino story. Both Martino and his auxiliary bishop, John M. Dougherty, have just resigned. David Gibson has a good summary of the Martino story (and of the possible backstory of this resignation) at Politics Daily yesterday.

Gibson reports that there are suggestions that the polarizing, extremely partisan behavior of Martino and some other bishops may have caused the powers that be to nudge the Scranton bishop to step down. As he notes, that polarizing, partisan behavior has been on full display in the response of a few U.S. Catholic bishops to health care reform, and of a handful of U.S. Catholics of the fringe right to the choice to give Ted Kennedy a Christian burial.

Gibson writes,

Whatever the ins and outs of the internal church maneuvering, the upshot is that a leading voice in the anti-Obama wing of the church hierarchy has been silenced while both Obama and Biden continue to take center stage.

At Edward Kennedy's funeral on Saturday, for example, Biden received communion while Obama gave a moving eulogy. Obama also spoke quietly before the service with Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who himself rejected lobbying from the Catholic right that he not allow the pro-choice Kennedy a public funeral or at least not to appear if there was a public funeral. Some reports say O'Malley sought to open a channel of communication with Obama via their brief chat, which lasted just 2-3 minutes.

Moreover, the lionizing of Kennedy in the wake of his death arguably showed him to be a far more prominent and beloved Catholic figure than most any bishop.

In addition, there are signs that some bishops are growing uneasy with the more strident and even partisan tone of many church leaders, especially in the wake of the shooting of Kansas abortionist George Tiller. The opposition of some bishops to health care reform -- which the pope has declared a fundamental human right -- as well as fallout from the fierce opposition by some to Obama's appearance at Notre Dame in May has also given some bishops pause.

“[There are signs that some bishops are growing uneasy with the more strident and even partisan tone of many church leaders”: if that’s true, I have to wonder what has taken many bishops so long to see the bitter fruits being borne now after several decades of carefully cultivated moral imbecility in American Catholicism around the single issue of abortion.

I’ve been noting this over and over on Bilgrimage from the last campaign period forward: mobs ranting and raving about baby-killing at McCain-Palin rallies, posturing as pro-life when they advocate for unlimited rights to carry guns, for capital punishment, against health care coverage for all citizens, and for draconian measures against immigrants. The real motives of these groups have about as much to do with respect for life as oil has to do with water.

And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see this. How has it taken so long for many of the bishops to see what is right before their eyes, as the self-professed guardians of orthodoxy scream about liberals and socialists and the culture of death (and bashing gays and killing baby killers and denying communion and Christian burial to fellow Catholics)? Bitter fruits. And fruits that have been growing apace for years now, carefully cultivated by many of those who appear suddenly to recognize their incompatibility with the gospel—now that it may be too late to do much about them.

And as Frank Cocozzelli notes in a good article yesterday at Talk to Action about the Catholic right’s attempt to block health care reform, it’s not really about abortion all in the final analysis. No matter how loudly the guardians of orthodoxy shout about baby killing, it's impossible to disguise what their opposition to health care reform is really about, in the final analysis.

It’s about money. It’s about protecting the interests of wealthy economic elites, the same wealthy elites that fund the right-wing Catholic think tanks like the Cardinal Newman Society (on this group, see, e.g., here and here) and the Catholic colleges that such think tanks anoint as more Catholic than the rest, like Patrick Madrid’s Belmont Abbey College (see here and here).

It’s about serving the interests of wealthy elites whose primary concerns seem to have more to do with profit than the common good, with free enterprise than the gospel. Cocozzelli writes,

For the likes of Deal Hudson, Brent Bozell III and Bill Donohue would resort to mendacious means to protect the interests of their benefactors who provide funding to Heritage, MRC or the Morley Institute is not surprising. In doing so they camouflage the considerable corporate opposition to necessary forms of health insurance and for a fair and vigorous public option.

As for Archbishop Chaput, Bishop Nickless and Cardinal Rigali, such recklessness sets a new low. Perhaps these three princes of my faith are genuinely worried about issues of abortion and euthanasia. But to react in such a reactionary manner tells us that they are so obsessed with these what are in reality, peripheral issues that would gladly leave 46 million plus Americans without health care coverage.

So obsessed with peripheral issues that they would gladly leave 46 million-plus Americans without health care coverage. As they try to convince us that they are motivated by respect for life. And that they represent the Catholic tradition in its truest, purest form. When they are, in reality, nothing more than shameless shills for corporate economic interest groups that are bitterly hostile to the Catholic tradition of respect for life and human rights. No matter how much they scream about baby killers and liberals and the culture of death.

Readers Write: The Politicization of American Catholicism

I'm slow to blog today for a variety of reasons. Steve had some minor surgery yesterday, and I am in nursing mode, though, as always, even when he's under the weather, he's trying to tend to my needs. Maybe with reason: I'm the world's worst nurse, and by hopping up and down and running to the kitchen for cups of coffee for me, he's avoiding having me experiment on him with my nostrums and potions.

I'm also, frankly, downhearted. The news in the American Catholic church is just so . . . bleak. There's the attempt to punish Notre Dame for inviting President Obama to be its commencement speaker in May, about which I have blogged.

And then there's the bullying of Randall Terry and Archbishop Raymond Burke, about which much is now being written. A good synopsis of the latest on that story, with links to good postings by Michael Sean Winters at America, is on the Whispers in the Loggia blog today (here) in a posting entitled "Burkxploitation?"

I've posted on Randall Terry and his . . . interesting . . . past before (here and here).

And I've blogged about Burke frequently--see, e.g., here. Burke is, of course, yet another of the bishops on the Episcopal Advisory Board of the Cardinal Newman Society--the same Cardinal Newman Society trying to create grief for President Obama by attacking Notre Dame. He is in the country now to pontificate at the upcoming National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, which is yet another of those events/groups founded during the period of neocon dominance to provide a religious gloss to Republican political goals.

As Catholics United for the Common Good noted last year (here),

The National "Catholic" Prayer Breakfast is sponsored by an independent 501(c)(3) of the same name comprised of five Republican political operatives. These partisan activists use the event to foster the false notion that the Catholic Church supports the policies of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party.

As Catholics United for the Common Good also points out, the "Catholic" topics highlighted at this annual event, which welcomes Republican leaders with open arms while turning its back on Democratic ones, contain glaring lacunae. While the prayer breakfast treats participants to a smorgasbord of selections about abortion and same-sex marriage, its agenda somehow fails to examine the war in Iraq, comprehensive immigration reform, poverty, and health care, which, as Catholics United for the Common Good notes, are "all critical issues to the Catholic Church."

Go the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast's website, and look at its announcement regarding this year's event, and you'll see three iconic faces looking out at you: Archbishop Raymond Burke, Antonin Scalia, and George W. Bush. Yes, this year's program features the face of George W. Bush . . . !

Which brings me to the points two good readers made in comments about my last posting yesterday, re: strategies to support Notre Dame (here). Phillip and Colkoch both note that the American Catholic church has been politicized in recent years, to an extent unheard of in its previous history--in particular, to an extent unheard of in the 20th century prior to the period of neoconservative dominance.

And I agree. This is also a point that lifelong Republican and former Ambassador to the Vatican Patrick Thomas Melady makes in an article in National Catholic Reporter today (here). Melady has served in three Republican federal administrations.

He notes that in the past 20 years, the Eucharist has been politicized in American Catholicism in a way that was unthinkable in previous generations. And this is precisely the goal of Randall Terry's crusade right now: he wants the Vatican to pressure American bishops who are not denying Communion to pro-choice politicians, and even remove them from office.

And he has solicited the support of Archbishop Burke, though Burke now professes shock that what he took to be a video of himself giving private entre nous aid and comfort to pro-life activists is now being used as a public weapon by Randall Terry in a crusade to slam bishops who won't use the Eucharist as a political weapon.

Melady states drily, "I fear that the situation is getting out of control." And I would say drily back, "Indeed."

What particularly disturbs him is that Catholics (including some bishops) bitterly opposed to Mr. Obama prior to the election are now unwilling to engage the new administration in any positive way, but are intent only on attacking and destroying--on pursuing a scorched-earth policy. In the name of Christ, they say. He states,

Many had hoped that once the presidential elections took place, Republicans, especially Catholic Republicans, would practice engagement with the Obama administration and those on the other side of the political aisle — that we would present our ideas without the rabid emotionalism that serves only to question the integrity of our opponents. Our role, in the best traditions of a pluralistic democracy, would be that of the loyal opposition.

I agree with Melady, both that the Eucharist should not be used as a political weapon, and that the current situation of scorched-earth politics by some American Catholics is deplorable. I'm surprised, however, that Dr. Melady is only now recognizing that things are getting out of hand.

They've been out of hand. Those now on the attack have been on the attack for some time now. Their agenda is theocratic, and they will not stop until they see that agenda fulfilled--even if its fulfillment requires coercing a majority of Americans and of brother and sister Catholics who do not agree with the agenda.

And that theocratic agenda has made significant inroads in American Catholicism because the American Catholic bishops have, as a body--with a few notable exceptions--willingly permitted theocratic extremists to capture the center of the American church. Their theocratic agenda is a mishmash of ill-considered Catholic theology and American evangelicalism. The bishops know this. They know that many of those promoting a right-wing theocratic agenda are badly educated Catholics. They also know that traditional Catholic values are incompatible with many of the values of right-wing evangelicalism.

And yet they have allowed this mentality to grow, to represent itself as authentic Catholicism, as the only possible Catholicism, and have done next to nothing to correct itself. They have allowed the American Catholic church to become captive to political operatives who promote goals that are antithetical to Catholic values.

They have blessed Bush and Cheney, Gingrich and Erik Prince, while repudiating Obama and Biden, Sebelius and Pelosi. At the same time in which the bishops have deliberately dumbed down their flock, they have also shoved away large numbers of faithful Catholics whose consciences cannot permit us to idolize the Bushes and Cheneys of the world--and their torture, their unjust wars, their callous repudiation of the poor, their shocking lack of concern for the environment.

In the period of neoconservative dominance, a period that Nicholas Cafardi was correct during the election to compare to the Babylonian captivitity of the people of God (here), the leaders of American Catholicism have given spectacularly bad pastoral leadership to their flock. What we are seeing now are the results.

And we are only seeing the beginning. Martino's attack on Biden, the Cardinal Newman Society's attack on Notre Dame, Randall Terry's and Raymond Burke's attack on bishops who give Communion to pro-choice political leaders: these are just the first shots in a bitter war that theocratic right-wing Catholics who are more Republican than Catholic intend to wage against the new administration.

And they do not care who is hurt in this war. Why should they, if they haven't cared about the millions of Catholics who have been hurt up to now, as they seek to impose their theocratic imagination on an entire nation?

Ave Watch: Direct Ties between Tom Monaghan and Martino's Cardinal Newman Society

One final tidbit to tie up the story of the Catholic right's captivity to the political right and the big money funding the political right (here): I wrote two days ago about the links between Tom Monaghan and his Ave Maria University, and publishers of the Catholic right such as Ignatius Press.

I'd like to note here another link, a direct link that joins Bishop Martino in a public, easily tracked financial way to Monaghan and Ave Maria. As the AveWatch website notes, Monaghan's financial records show him contributing directly and largely ($10,000--the year is not clear; 2005 is implied) to the Cardinal Newman Society (here).

Who, in return, greased Monaghan's palm in 2007 by naming Ave Maria University "one of the best Catholic schools in America for undergraduate students," with a promise to high-profile Ave Maria students in its upcoming guide to "true" Catholic colleges . . . .

This shows one direct tie, a financial one, at that, between Martino and Monaghan, via the Cardinal Newman Society. But of course it's just a big old conspiracy theory to imagine that the thick, intertwining, incestuous ties between the big funders of the Catholic and Republican right really signify any connection or collusion . . . .

For those interested in knowing more about Monaghan and Ave Maria, I highly recommend the Ave Watch website (here). As its header notes, it engages in ongoing investigative journalism regarding Monaghan and Ave Maria.

Watchdog Activities of Cardinal Newman Society: The Response of American Catholic Bishops

And, since the Cardinal Newman Society, on whose episcopal advisory board Bishop Martino of Scranton sits (here), sought to plant a second defamatory story about Catholic universities on the same day it trumpeted its story about Martino's attack on Misericordia University, I'd like to draw attention to an editorial in America magazine two years ago (here).

This editorial is still pertinent. America published it at a moment in which the American Catholic bishops and American Catholic universities were being hounded by Cardinal Newman Society over the implementation of the Vatican document Ex corde ecclesiae. That document, which calls on Catholic institutions of higher learning to assess their Catholic identity and consider how they transmit Catholic values to students, precipitated an ongoing discussion among bishops and presidents of Catholic universities. As the America editorial notes, Ex corde ecclesiae was itself written in this dialogic fashion, as the outcome of a process of discussion.

Cardinal Newman Society would have nothing of the discussion. The Society and the bishops who advise it preferred, instead, to attack, to plant misleading stories in the media about the purported decline in the Catholicity of American universities.

As the America editorial notes, in January 2006, the outgoing chair of the bishops' committee dealing with Catholic higher education, Archbishop John G. Vlazny, wrote Martino and other bishops identified as episcopal advisors for the Cardinal Newman Society. Archbishop Vlazny's letter notes that his committee and the American bishops had been monitoring the actions of Cardinal Newman society, and found them "often aggressive, inaccurate, or lacking in balance," as well as "often objectionable in substance and in tone."

What, in particular, have brother bishops found objectionable about the behavior of Cardinal Newman Society and its episcopal advisors? Here's America's observation:

What have been the methods of the Cardinal Newman Society that the Bishops and Presidents Committee find so objectionable? The Cardinal Newman Society keeps a close watch on how Catholic campuses observe the society’s self-defined and rather narrow view of what constitutes Catholic orthodoxy. Their litmus tests include: whether any campus group has sponsored a presentation of “The Vagina Monologues”; whether any politician who does not favor criminalizing abortion is invited to speak at a campus event; whether the institution has sponsored a support group for gay and lesbian students; and, most recently, whether faculty or staff at a Catholic institution supported John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2004 elections.

In pursuit of its skewed view of orthodox Catholicism, the Cardinal Newman Society has been reckless in its caricature of opposing viewpoints, misrepresenting the positions of those with whom they disagree. Even sadder, however, is the assumption behind their watchdog tactics. The test of a Catholic institution implicit in those tactics is a negative one.

As America notes, Cardinal Newman Society wants to impose an entirely negative test on Catholic universities, as it judges their catholicity. It does not focus on the positive ways in which a Catholic institution transmits Catholic ideas and values. It establishes a narrow (and--my assessment--fundamentally political) standard by which to judge most Catholic colleges as "out" and a select, sectarian, highly politicized and right-leaning few, as "in."

The approach of Cardinal Newman Society has, America thinks, little understanding of or regard for one of the central functions of a Catholic university, which is to engage contemporary culture in a dialogic way. It, and its episcopal leaders, would prefer to dictate to culture, to create a bastion of like-minded believers and hurl down invectives against contemporary culture, insofar as it does not toe the party line of these sectarians.

And they're still at it. On the same day that Cardinal Newman Society sought to create a media frenzy around the Martino-Misericordia story, the Society issued a press release attacking Georgetown University, Loyola of Chicago, and Seattle University (here). Their infraction?

According to Cardinal Newman Society, these three Jesuit institutions have permitted dialogue about LGBT issues. As Misericordia University did, incurring Martino's ire: the similarity in these stories is not accidental. Both stories are attempts to create media frenzies in which "orthodox" Catholics will get up in arms about the (totally manufactured) "decline" in Catholicity of American Catholic schools.

And will donate money. To the Cardinal Newman Society. And to the Republican party.

And will vote Republican. And will (the real objective of the Martino story, with its pointers back to Mr. Biden and Scranton) participate in the crusade of the Catholic right to undermine the new administration in every way possible.

While our economic institutions fall apart, while millions of Americans are struggling to pay mortgages and rent, to feed their families, to find work, these political partisans wearing Catholic garb are gleefully engaged in divisive attacks, in attempts to undermine and destroy, in ongoing efforts to seize theocratic control of the political process. And in behavior that tears apart the unity of the American Catholic church.

If they do not succeed--and they may well do so; they have powerful people with deep pockets behind them, people whose willingness to disseminate disinformation in the name of their "good" is well-demonstrated--there may come a day when historians look back at such behavior and ask how those engaged in it ever thought they were faithfully Catholic. Or grounded in the gospels and example of Jesus, in any shape, form, or fashion.

(As an aside: note the web editor's comment that follows the America editorial. As it suggests, when America published the editorial, the right-wing Catholic noise machine did something it routinely does, when its actions are criticized: it encouraged its partisans to flood America with invective about its betrayal of Catholic values. It is clearly not about dialogue, for the political and religious right. It's about control, and the shutting down of dialogue and destruction of opponents that are required to gain such control.)

The Catholic Right as Republican Mouthpiece: Frank Cocozzelli's Analysis

As an appendix to my discussion of the Catholic right's capitulation to the political right--its subordination of Catholic belief and values to extreme-right political ideologies--I'd like to point to a source that readers interested in these themes may wish to read.

Frank Cocozzelli, Director of the Institute for Progressive Christianity, has done yeoman's work for years now tracking and exposing the Catholic right. His ongoing multi-part series on the Catholic right at the Talk to Action website is must-reading for anyone concerned about collusion of nasty right-wing money and the Catholic right, and the effects of that collusion on our political process. A chronological listing of all his articles and postings at that site is here.

In a 6 Sept. posting last year, Cocozzelli specifically addresses Martino and his "transparently factious" and overt political attempts to "unduly influence the American political process" (here and here). Some select quotes from that article:

Outside of a handful of issues such as abortion, stem cell research and LGTB civil rights, Palin has little in common with the Vatican and substantially less with the majority of American Catholics. But this narrow band of commonality will nevertheless be the pretext on which Catholicism will be defined [by the Catholic right], for political purposes as almost solely about abortion.

Some such as Bishop Charles Chaput of Denver are downright belligerent about it. Chaput has said that Senator Biden should refrain from Communion because of his stance on abortion rights and Bishop Joseph F. Martino of the Diocese of Scranton (Biden's birthplace) has made it clear that he would deny Senator Biden Communion because, in his words, "I will not tolerate any politician who claims to be a faithful Catholic who is not genuinely pro-life." . . .

When members of the Catholic hierarchy and their allies resort to such tactics, they cease being a legitimate voice in a ongoing debate and instead become transparently factious entities seeking to unduly influence the American political process. Such behavior is the difference between contributing to the national discourse and trying to dominate it. . . .

In short, Chaput, Martino and other such strident clergymen have a severely limited understanding of "pro-life issues." . . .

As I wrote this piece I searched in vain on for any evidence of just one demand by Bishops Chaput or Martino that universal healthcare be provided to all Americans. If they have publicly advocated for universal health care, they must have hidden it well, since my research turned up nothing from either of these otherwise high profile prelates. When I linked their two names to "universal healthcare" all I could find were endless pronouncements on banning abortion and euthanasia.

As Cocozzelli's analysis here demonstrates, what is driving Chaput, Martino, and their supporters in the American Catholic church is not so much the desire to outlaw abortion, as the drive to impose one political viewpoint and one political party on all Americans, in the name of "orthodoxy." The overt, grotesque use of the episcopal office and the sacraments to try to whip Catholics into line--into a political line--has not ended with the election of Obama.

Indeed, it is only beginning. In coming weeks, particularly with the choice of Governor Sebelius as the Health Secretary of the new administration, we can look for this strident, politicized, divisive behavior on the part of the Catholic right to be stepped up. And for many more attempts to grandstand with cooked-up stories about the "decline" of Catholicity in American Catholic universities, as they seek to planted these false reports everywhere they . . . .

Note of Thanks to Good Readers

As the workday winds down, a note of thanks to two bloggers who have linked to Bilgrimage postings about the Catholic and the political right in recent days: Joseph O'Leary (here) and JudiPhilly (here).

I'm grateful to have good readers. And it's encouraging to know that, as the well-organized and well-funded right-wing noise machine spins out its pseudo news stories, there's a network of citizen bloggers helping to make the real story known.

Santelli's Faux Rant: Rightwing Noise Machine and Manufactured "News"

Like me, you may have wondered how Rick Santelli’s CNBC “tea party” rant some days back became an instant media hit (here). From the moment I saw the clip on the nightly news that evening, I had questions.

For one thing, the story was the lead story on the station I happened to tune into, though plenty of other stories demanded far more attention that day. For another thing, the news broadcast was my first inkling of the rant. I had been reading news online all day, without a peep about this story the news was suddenly telling me I should regard as earth-shaking.

The news featured interviews with folks across the country. The rant seemed, well, immediately organized, instantly transmitted to receptive outlets everywhere. Manufactured, that is to say . . . .

If you’ve had any of those inklings about Santelli's tea party, you’ll be very interested in Barry Ritholtz’s 28 February “Rick Santelli’s Planned Rant?”(here). Ritholtz discusses a recent article in Playboy magazine which asks how a minor-league t.v. figure like Santelli suddenly found his rant launched into a “nationwide rightwing blog sensation.”

Playboy’s answer? What we saw in the Santelli rant and its instant transmission to right-wing sites across the world was an attempt to pull “a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign.” That attempt involves players whose faces should be familiar to many of us now: the “Republican rightwing machine,” with its “PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called ‘astroturfing’); and “bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders.”

The Playboy investigation of what happened when Santelli pulled his tea-party stunt notes that within hours, a site called ChicagoTeaParty.com, with a YouTube video of the Santelli rant, went live. But the site had been registered back in August 2008. By Zach Christensen, a Republican activist and producer for the right-wing Chicago radio talk-show host Milt Rosenberg.
Playboy’s conclusion:

In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced.

If you’re interested in wild conspiracy theories about carefully planned, carefully seeded media stories designed to dig away at the new administration, with big Republican right-wing money and big Republican right-wing operatives all over the place in the background of these orchestrated media events (here), take a look at Barry Ritholtz’s posting and the excerpts from the Playboy article it includes. As you do so, keep in mind, though, that this is just another of those crazy conspiracy tales where, if you see the obvious and point it out, you're probably just imagining what you're seeing. Don't trust your eyes—trust those who still think they're making a procative and compelling point when they tell you're a conspiracy-theory nut.

Because if you do trust your own eyes, you might see the following: the Rovian playbook remains firmly in place for the Republican right in the U.S. They will do anything and everything to manufacture media tempests to try to unsettle the new administration and to stir up discontent with it.

The goal of this little Santelli tempest was to spur a pseudo-populist “revolt” against the stimulus plan. The goal of the little tempest surrounding Bishop Martino is to get the Catholic war drums beating against him.

And they’ll keep trying these strategies anywhere they can, as long as they appear successful. It’s a game of probing each soft spot in the new administration the right thinks it may have identified, and then rolling out a pseudo media event to see if a story that can breach that soft spot will develop strength.

One problem, though: the Santelli trick just didn’t work. There was an immediate frenzy, and then everything died down. People are flat tired of Rovian tricks—of essentially dumb, time-wasting, mind-numbing tricks premised on the presupposition that we are mindless drones who can be whipped into a froth by cynical political activists counting on us to react and not to think. People are concerned about real issues right now—like buying groceries, paying rent, finding a way to pay a doctor’s bill—and not the ideological hot-button issues that are all the Rovian right has going for it.

The Santelli story never got legs, and the Martino story isn’t getting legs, either. It has run like wildfire all through the predictable right-wing Catholic (read: Republican) blogs. But it’s stuck there. The media aren’t picking up on this story, as they didn’t pick up on the Santelli rant after the first day or so.

This leaves our friends on the right fuming with anger, as my excerpts from Brent Bozell's utterances about Obama's victory and the media in yesterday's posting demonstrates (here). The old tricks just aren’t working so effectively any more. The Rovian playbook seems, well, more than a tad bit dated.

Maybe it’s time to try something new. Like thinking. Like reading. Like talking to those you dismiss as loony conspiracy nuts or as foes of (your) orthodoxy. Usually, when people experience defeat, as the right decisively did in the last election, they take one of two courses following their defeat. They can learn from the defeat and become wiser (and better) folks.

Or they can keep replicating the self-defeating, essentially stupid strategies that got them into trouble in the first place. And as they do so, they shrink into tiny, fragmented sectarian, ideologically driven groups, each of which claims to have the only possible true optic on reality—and each as irrelevant to the social mainstream as the other.

What will it be with our brothers and sisters of the Catholic right now, I wonder?

H/T John Aravosis at America Blog for the link to Barry Ritholtz's blog (here).

Right-Wing Catholicism, Right-Wing Politics: Thick Ties in the Martino and Misericordia Story

I’m always happy when something I write attracts the attention of bloggers of the religious-political right. I take it as a sign that I’m on the right track when this happens. The hot replies that often come forth from those sites, full of outraged (and outrageous) claims that their positions have been distorted, suggest to me that I’ve hit the bull’s eye.

And then there’s the free publicity for Bilgrimage. That’s no small consideration when one’s stats counter suddenly shoots up after a bit of calumny from our brothers and sisters of the right.

Friday, Carl Olson attacked me on his Insight Scoop blog (here). For those who don’t follow the intricate, incestuous connections of the Catholic right (and the intricate, incestuous connections between the Catholic right and the political right), Insight Scoop is attached to Ignatius Press.

Ignatius Press was founded by Joseph Fessio, a Jesuit whom an online history of Ignatius describes as “a longtime personal friend of Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI” (here). Fessio founded St. Ignatius Institute at San Francisco University in 1976 “in reaction to liberalizing influences of the Second Vatican Council (1963-65) and curriculum changes at the university,” and is a “celebrated figure in right-wing Catholic circles” closely associated with the EWTN network of Mother Angelica (here).

Fessio is now Theologian-in-Residence at Ave Maria University. Ave Maria is the dreamchild of pizza magnate and right-wing Catholic political activist Tom Monaghan, whom reporter Liam Dillon identified last November as a “national power broker for GOP political candidates” (here).

Dillon’s article notes that Monaghan’s confidantes include Deal Hudson, “a prominent Catholic Republican operative,” and that the politicians and political action groups he has supported with major funding include Sam Brownback (R, Kansas), Mitt Romney (R, Massachusetts), Bob Schaffer (R, Colorado), and the Republican National Committee. As Dillon notes, Monaghan has chosen to exert influence on the American political process by use of his wealth to fund and create organizations for political activism.

Monaghan has a particular interest in trying to keep the Catholic vote in the Republican pocket. As Dillon states,

The combination of Monaghan’s staunch anti-abortion stance and pro-free market capitalism make him a natural fit for the Republican Party. His willingness to spend his fortune promoting these ideas makes him a power broker, especially as the bloc of 47 million Catholic voters nationwide continues to fragment.

Monaghan and Ave Maria have strong ties to Judge Robert Bork, Nixon’s attorney general and solicitor general, later appointed by Reagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C.; Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice appointed by Reagan; and Clarence Thomas, another Supreme Court justice appointed by George H.W. Bush. Under the Reagan administration, Monaghan was actively involved in the attempt to undermine liberation theology in Latin America (here and here).

As Michael Genovese notes in his study Catholics and Politics, Monaghan’s influence extends through the multiple right-wing political organizations he helps to fund and/or has set up through an interlocking network of ties that geometrically increase the influence of these groups on our political process (cited in Dillon). Dillon refers to this interlocking network as the “Ave Maria nexus.” I stress the word “nexus” here, because it’s central to Olson’s attempt to attack my analysis of what’s taking place with Bishop Martino of Scranton, on Olson’s Insight Scoop blog—an attack to which I will return in a moment.

Through his ties to Deal Hudson, whom Bill Berkowitz at Media Transparency characterizes as “the point man for the Bush administration in all matters Catholic,” Monagahan and his allies exerted strong influence in that administration (here). Berkowitz notes that Hudson was in regular contact with Karl Rove and advised Rove and his associates how to tailor their message for Catholic audiences. Berkowitz notes as well that

[Hudson] was also a major player in the organized effort by conservative Catholics to demonize liberal Catholics, and remake the church in their own ideological image; turn it away from concerns about economic and social justice missions and towards embracing narrow social issues.

Hudson fell on hard times, unfortunately, when it came out in 2004 that he had left Fordham University a decade before as a result of a sexual liaison with an 18-year old coed (here). He has now bounced back to a position of influence in D.C. at the Morley Institute, sponsor of the Inside Catholic blog, which describes itself as “a voice for authentic Catholicism in the public square” (here).

The preceding is a short overview of the intricate and incestuous nexus of right-wing Catholic and political ties within which the analysis of Mr. Olson’s Insight Scoop blog is situated. As anyone reading the preceding account of the thick connections between Mr. Olson’s right-wing Catholic cronies and right-wing Republican leaders immediately recognizes, there is absolutely no way that one can separate such right-wing Catholics from Republican causes.

It is with bad faith, indeed, then, that they try to play the conspiracy-theory card when others point out what is right in front of our eyes: the clear and plain intertwining and interlocking of religious and political objectives and affiliation in their "theological" analysis. Their religious analysis is also political analysis. They are moved as much (or more) by their political commitments and ideas, as by their religious ideas.

Their attack on Catholics who do not toe their right-wing Republican line is a political attack. It is designed to serve the interests of the Republican party. It reflects the judgment of a nasty nexus of right-wing political operatives and right-wing Catholics that the Republican party is the sole option for faithful Catholics today.

In promoting such analysis, I am engaging, Mr. Olson maintains, in conspiracy mongering. Olson implies that there is not, as I claimed in my Friday posting on Bishop Martino and the Misericordia story, a "nasty nexus of right-wing Catholics and their well-funded, powerfully placed political allies" involved in promoting stories like the Martino story, in an attempt to gain political traction for the Republican party (here).

When one looks at the abundant—the clear and patent—evidence for such a nasty nexus in the brief sketch with which I began this posting, one wonders why Olson seeks to deny what is evident to anyone who does even the scantest research on the organization for which he himself writes. The ties are obvious, and they are exceptionally thick. From Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, to Bork, Scalia, and Thomas, through right-wing Catholic activists including Monaghan, Hudson, and Fessio, to Republican congressional members funded by this nexus: the ties I’ve described in my analysis of Martino are everywhere.

And there’s more. Martino is not merely a bishop. He is a political activist, a member of a nasty nexus of several U.S. Catholic bishops and Republican leaders, who have done and continue to do everything but stand on their heads to convince American Catholics that we will lose our souls if we do not vote Republican.

Consider, for instance, Martino’s ties to the Cardinal Newman Society. Martino’s biography on the Diocese of Scranton website notes these ties: it states that he is a member of the Ecclesiastical Advisory Committee of that society (here). Other members of that committee include such outspoken advocates of right-wing Catholicism and politics as Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, and Vatican official Raymond Burke. Its spiritual advisor Benedict Groeschel is a close associate of EWTN, and its board chaplain Paul Scalia is a son of Justice Antonin Scalia (here).

And what exactly is the Cardinal Newman Society, whose name suggests that it is a Catholic confraternity or theological organization? Dig into the organization’s history, affiliations, and activities, and the fun begins—along with a growing recognition that this is not a theological confraternity at all, but a front for the Republican party wearing Catholic disguise.

In 2005, Michael Kranish did a valuable analysis of the Cardinal Newman Society for Boston Globe readers (here). Kranish notes that the group, whose headquarters are in an unmarked building in a mall in northern Virginia outside D.C., routinely “pores over statements by professors at the nation's Catholic colleges in an effort to find ''heretics and dissidents . . . ."

Give us syllabi. Quote course numbers. Prove to us you are no longer beating your wife. Right now (here).

And why this lavish devotion to the attempt to prove that American Catholic colleges are heretic-infested? As Kramish notes, the allegations that the Cardinal Newman Society makes about the purported decline in Catholicity of Catholic colleges “help the group raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, mostly from small contributors.” Money that goes towards political causes—Republican political causes; and allegations that keep Catholic money flowing in that direction . . . .

Kranish wrote his exposé at a time in which the Cardinal Newman Society had decided to target Boston College. Unfortunately, the attempt of the Society to depict that Jesuit university as defectively Catholic backfired, as leading figures in American Catholic academic life denounced the tactics and not-too-hidden political agenda of the Cardinal Newman Society.

In the view of Rev. John Beal, a canon law professor at Catholic University of America, the Society’s behavior is “red-baiting in ecclesiastical garb." Charles L. Currie, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in 2005, told Kramish that the ''attacks [of the Cardinal Newman Society] can no longer go unchallenged." He noted that the Society’s activities at Boston College ''follow a long trail of distorted, inaccurate, and often untrue attacks on scholars addressing complex issues."

According to Michael James, vice president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities in 2005, the Cardinal Newman Society is ''destructive and antithetical to a spirit of unity in our commitment to serve society and the church." In the view of Rev. John Paris, a member of Boston College’s faculty attacked by the Society, he was targeted to help the Cardinal Newman Society raise money. Paris questioned the political agenda of the Cardinal Newman Society.

Karnish notes the widespread conclusion of many of those observing this quasi-Catholic political activist organization that its high-profile attacks on Catholic colleges are primarily about raising funds for Republican causes. As he also notes, a number of its board members have strong ties to politically conservative groups.

These include L. Brent Bozell III, director of the Media Research Center, which Karnish characterizes as “a self-described watchdog for liberal bias.” Karnish notes that Bozell's website says he is executive director of the Conservative Victory Fund, a political action committee that has raised money for congressional candidates.

As Media Transparency’s webpage tracking Brent Bozell notes, Bozell is “a zealot of impeccable right-wing pedigree,” who is a nephew of William F. Buckley and whose father L. Brent Bozell, Jr., assisted Barry Goldwater with writing The Conscience of a Conservative (here). The webpage also notes that Bozell was a close associate of Terry Dolan, the closeted gay founder of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, on which Bozell has served as finance chairman and president.

In the view of Media Transparency, Bozell’s Media Research Center is all about right-wing political activism—“a platform from which to bash the arts and popular culture.” Keith Olbermann named Bozell “Worst Person in the World” in November 2006 when Bozell claimed that "100 generals ... would disagree" with NBC's characterization of Iraq as "a civil war" (here).

This is the kind of company that Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton keeps. These are the sort of right-wing Republican fingerprints that are all over Martino’s ostensibly religious, ostensibly Catholic, crusade to shut down the Diversity Institute at Misericordia University. These are the right-wing players and right-wing motives lying behind Martino’s attempt—and the attempt of his allies—to work the charge that Misericordia is not adequately Catholic into a media frenzy.

This is the nexus that acolytes such as Carl Olson do not want to have exposed, because it demonstrates the essentially political, rather than religious, motives of Martino and his allies as they bash Misericordia University and threaten the denial of communion to Democratic politicians.

Bozell has been posturing to get media attention for stories like Martino's ever since it became clear that Mr. Obama would win the presidency. In October last year, he snorted,

As CBS and other networks touted Biden’s "working-class Catholic roots" growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, they refused even to note that the Bishop of Scranton had announced it wrong to give Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians like Biden (here).

As Eric Boehlert notes at Media Matters, even before Democrats had officially won the Senate, Bozell was whining last November, "In 25 years of looking at the national media, I have never in my life seen a more one-sided, distorted, vicious presentation of news -- and non-news -- by the national media" (here).

What is going on now with Martino and those promoting his story is part and parcel of an ongoing strategy of right-wing political activists and right-wing Catholics to use the media in a nationwide campaign to portray Catholics critical of the capitulation of some bishops to the Republican party as unfaithful Catholics, Catholics defective in their faith. As Steve Benen reported in the Washington Monthly in July 2004, in June of that year, Bozell, “a conservative activist, launched a $2.8 million advertising and talk-radio campaign to discredit the ‘liberal news media’” (here).

And they’re still at it. The cooked-up story of the defective Catholicity of Misericordia University and its Diversity Institute is part of this national campaign, which is all about undermining those who critique neonconservative political and religious ideology. It is all about trying to gain legs for an old story of which the media are growing somewhat tired, to the outrage of Martino, Bozell, and all their right-wing Catholic cronies around the nation: the manufactured fable of the decline in “authentic” Catholicism as increasing numbers of American Catholics turn away from the unholy alliance with one political party.

It is no accident that the story is now being spun out of Scranton by these powerful, wealthy right-wing political elites determined to keep the American Catholic church captive to their economic interests and viewpoints. Scranton is the home diocese of Obama’s vice-president Joe Biden. These attempts to shake the episcopal fist, to threaten withholding of communion from Biden and other Democratic politicians: they are attempts to threaten, embarrass, and undermine the new administration.

Republican attempts. Shameful, dirty attempts. By Catholic pastoral leaders in the pocket of shameful, dirty economic interest groups and their political mouthpieces. Who should have pastoral goals like healing, unifying, engaging, gathering in, speaking the truth, and critiquing the overweening powerful in mind, as they follow their callings—not goals like dividing, attacking, threatening, maiming, and distorting the truth.

And fundamentally stupid attempts, since the playbook does not shift at all even as the culture addressed by these bozart leaders shifts dramatically: while increasing numbers of American Catholics shrug their shoulders at the episcopal fist-shaking and saber rattling, their right-wing advocates continue to manufacture more shaking and rattling, as if this is effective and will influence us. As if we don't have eyes to see and minds to think, and consciences with which to weigh such behavior.

These are people—these are bozarts—who have not given a great deal of thought to the Catholic tradition they claim to be saving for the rest of us. They are not, sadly, people who read a great deal—really read, beyond soundbytes, or who think about the rich variety and nuance of the tradition they claim to be saving with their wild laments of waning Catholicity. They are not people who think carefully or who anguish over what they learn as they struggle with new ideas. They are not people who value dialogue and expanding of mental horizons.

They are people who want to dumb down, to make others as dumb as they have made themselves while they swallow their next dose of neocon kool aid. They are people who simply cannot see the glaring inconsistency between the economic worldview they keep defending, and the papal teachings they have so carefully sifted to remove from them their critique of rapacious American-style neocon capitalism. And sadly, they have anointed themselves the saviors of the intellectual life of American Catholicism!

And in doing so, and going about their business as they do, they are hurting the American Catholic church. As Rev. James Keenan told Michael Kranish in 2005, while Kranish researched the Cardinal Newman Society’s attacks on Boston College,

There is something terribly indicative here of the degree of contentiousness in the United States Roman Catholic Church today. Hopefully, someday our bishops will call us to end this awful conduct, which hurts not only those of us targeted, but more importantly, the unity of the church itself.

If Carl Olson were interested in hearing my opinion, I’d suggest that if he and his cronies love the church as much as they claim to do, they stop denying the patent (and thick) connections between their “religious” causes and their overarching political concerns. And as they do so, that they perhaps begin to subject the latter to critique, in light of central preoccupations of the former . . . .

If Mr. Olson needs any pointers about what those central preoccupations might be, I’m happy to share.

Collusion of the Catholic and Political Right: The Martino Story Continues

Again, I’m using this blog space today to respond to a comment from a reader—to Colleen’s extremely valuable observations re: what I posted yesterday in response to Brian (here). Colleen recounts a shift she has seen happening in the Catholic college she and her daughter attended.

She took courses in Vatican II that were intellectually demanding and required real thought and engagement. Her daughter took courses—same university, same professor—in moral theology in the period in which the restorationist agenda began to roll through American Catholic theology departments. She was able to pass the course while hardly attending class. The syllabus spelled out in detail what the professor would teach. When Colleen asked about the shift in his pedagogical style—from challenging students to think, respond, and critique, to spoon-feeding them with “truth”—he told her he was being monitored in class and lived in fear of being reported to the authorities for saying anything that transgressed the restorationist canon of truths.

This is a significant testimony. Part of what I hoped to do with yesterday’s posting is to capture a “moment” in American Catholic theology, in which a decisive shift took place. That moment is not so distant in time. It took place decisively in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It had everything to do with pressure from the current pope, Benedict, when he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as Cardinal Ratzinger.

As head of the CDF, the current pope deliberately created within the academic life of Catholic universities a chill that began to affect how and what theologians thought, and how and what they wrote. This shift moved Catholic intellectual life away from a post-Vatican II engagement with contemporary society in which Catholic thinkers listen to and learn from secular disciplines as they offer Catholic insights, values, and teachings in a process of dialogic give and take. Now the model for Catholic intellectual life—and for theologians in particular—became one of receiving “truths” from on high and handing these down to anyone who cared to listen.

And that model was attended by severe punishments for those who sought to be faithful to the Vatican II model of dialogic engagement and respect for the wisdom of secular traditions, or even of non-Catholic Christian traditions and the contributions of other world religions.

Why focus on this shift? Because it needs to be remembered. History is written by the victors, and to a great extent, the restorationist agenda (and its right-wing political counterpart) has “won.” It has succeeded in determining the dominant discourse to such an extent that the center has moved decisively right. Now forward movement is permitted now without engaging the stop-gap arguments of those intent on standing astride history and shouting no. And by forcing us to bow to their "centrist" arguments as we try to move forward, they are effectively keeping us from the forward movement they intend to resist at all costs.

We have to struggle to remember the history from which we have just come, or we will never be able to move beyond the stalemates the religious and political right wish to produce in our imaginations and our discourse. We also have to know this history, to tell it in all its gory detail, because if we ever do budge from the stalemate position in which the right has deliberately placed us, we will not know how to budge, where to go, without understanding where we come from.

As the preceding notes suggest, the move against Vatican II—the move to the right, the deliberate dumbing down of Catholic intellectual life and the punishment of thinkers—was not merely a religious phenomenon. It was allied to and tied to a thrust within our political life and culture to stop critical reflection and force us into a right-leaning ideological conformity. It is part of a broader (and very deliberate) dumbing-down process in our culture at large, which is intended to cause us to reduce complex discussions to simplistic soundbytes, and to view iconic figures (e.g., Reagan and John Paul II) as heroic assurances of the virtue of the right-wing soundbytes we're being fed as gospel truth.

The watchdog groups monitoring what Catholic theologians teach and write today are hardly confined to the Catholic right. The political right has a keen interest in suppressing critical thought in Catholic life and a continuation of the project of Vatican II because the dialogical engagement with the world and with secular intellectual traditions has the possibility of retrieving the many critical strands in Catholic tradition that stand against neoconservative political and economic positions. The right does not want this to happen, and will not tolerate it happening.

I’m interested to hear Colleen’s testimony on the heels of the latest developments with Bishop Joseph Martino in Scranton. The phenomenon she describes at her alma mater—the monitoring of syllabi, the reporting to bishops and other authorities about any lapse in the “truths” taught in theology classes—is still going on. And I suspect that those involved in current movements to attack open theological discussion in Catholic universities are that same nasty nexus of right-wing Catholics and their well-funded, powerfully placed political allies who have been doing this monitoring for years now, a nexus that has attracted the kind of converts Brian notes in his comment on this blog’s posting several days ago—which I highlighted in yesterday’s posting.

Clerical Whispers is reporting today that Martino is seeking to force Misericordia to shut down its highly regarded and very successful Diversity Institute (here). Martino and the Scranton diocese are asking that the school report in very specific terms about what is taught in its theology courses, particularly in the area of morality. Martino and the diocese are demanding course titles, catalogue numbers, precise statements about content (i.e., syllabi), etc.

Now. Hand it over now. Convince me now that you are truly Catholic. When did you stop beating your wife? The menacing approach of those mounting this purge has already found Misericordia guilty as charged. The heads of the Sisters of Mercy who own the school are already on the metaphoric chopping block. Those engaged in this hunt for heretics and witches will have blood.

And they clearly include not merely the Catholic right, but highly placed members of the political right who are interested in seeing this contest take place as a proof of their continued ability to stir Catholic ire around hot-button issues like homosexuality—to keep Catholics voting “right.” Rick Santorum (remember him? the defeated Republican senator of Pennsylvania who loved to try linking homosexuality and bestiality?) weighed in yesterday on the editorial pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer (here).

His angle? Martino is the teacher who enforces. The enforcer who teaches. Mind-boggling analysis, if you stop to think about it, because it speaks volumes about the intent of the right to force people to accept the “truth,” and to use force against them if they do not accept the “truth” of the right. The word “enforce” says it all.

Teaching that compels, that demonstrates its persuasiveness by its arguments and its sound reasoning, does not have to use force. Only teaching whose arguments do not stand up to careful inspection needs to use force to make us swallow its “truths.” Begin teaching by force, and you are really admitting that you have lost the battle: your truths aren’t compelling. They aren’t true.

Google Martino’s name along with Misericordia, and you’ll see that the right-wing blogs are all over the Martino story. This has the smell of a witch-hunt mounted by some of those powerful right-wing political groups, with right-wing Catholic allies, mentioned by Brian in his posting several days ago. Their dirty fingers are all over this story, especially with the grossly insulting demand that Misericordia hand over—right now!—details about what it teaches in its theology courses.

As if what is taught in a curriculum could ever be reduced to what appears in a course listing or syllabus. As if what happens in the classroom itself, through dialogue and the collaborative search for truth, is not at the very heart of the educational process. As if Catholic values aren’t embedded throughout the curriculum of a Catholic university in ways that can never be boiled down to words in a syllabus. As if students don't learn values and moral insights primarily by who the teacher is rather than what she says—by the life he lives in their plain view rather than by the words he utters in class.

JudiPhilly notes something extremely important to this whole saga on her Truth, Justice & Peace blog today (here). As a Scranton native with strong ties to the Catholic community there (though she’s had enough of Catholicism), she has an inside track to news about Misericordia. She says that Martino did not once contact Misericordia or the Diversity Institute to discuss his concerns with them before releasing his statement calling for a witch hunt.

Instead, he went to the media. He issued a press release demanding that the Institute respond to him. This smells. To high heaven.

And I suspect he will get away with it. The speed with which this story is burning through the blogs of the right tells me this is orchestrated, as does Martino’s choice to lambast Misericordia in a press release without seeking to talk to the university in advance.

As I say, the right has won in both culture and church, insofar as it has succeeded in normalizing its far-right presuppositions as centrist presuppositions we all must engage now when we put together religious, cultural, political, or economic arguments. What is going on with Martino and the right, vis-à-vis the Diversity Institute at Misericordia, is muscle-flexing to show us the continued power of the political and religious right.

The target is well-chosen. Mark my words, they will find a way to make Misercordia suffer for its choice to invite an openly gay speaker to its Diversity Institute. This is a well-chosen tempest in a teapot, because the right knows it can almost always win, when the topic is engaging the reality of gay lives within the academic framework of Catholic universities. This punishment of Misericordia is being developed by the right as a symbolic demonstration that it continues to have power in Obama’s America, particularly when it comes to gay human beings and the Catholic church.

The only thing that will effectively halt such tragic diversionary wastes of time and energy by faith communities being used as tools of the political and economic right will be the choice of members of those who resist the right-wing cultural captivity of their churches to stand up, stand together, and insist that it is our church, too. And that the captivity to the political and economic right is betraying all that we stand for and believe in, and have stood for and believed in for centuries, with the best of our tradition.

The Smaller, Purer (Leaner, Meaner) Church Rattles Again: Martino's Back

Martino's back. And with a vengeance. You know, the Scranton, Pennsylvania, bishop who made a big splash during the presidential election last October when he stormed into a parish where the faithful were discussing the obligations of Catholic citizens. Martino shut the discussion down, stating, "There is one teacher in this diocese, and these points are not debatable” (here).

The points to which Martino was referring were principles for Catholic voters in “Faithful Citizenship,” a document issued in 2007 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. When he shut down that parish discussion last October, Martino brandished “Faithful Citizenship,” announcing, “No USCCB document is relevant in this diocese. The USCCB doesn’t speak for me. The only relevant document . . . is my letter.”

As a number of sources including Whispers in the Loggia (here) are reporting the past several days, Martino rapped Sen. Bob Casey of the Scranton diocese early this month for voting against reinstatement of the so-called Mexico City policy.

And now this week, Martino has inveighed against the decision of Misericordia University to invite openly gay speaker Keith Boykin to give a presentation at the university. Martino expressed his "absolute disapproval" of this decision and opined that the Sisters of Mercy-owned institution is "seriously failing in maintaining its Catholic identity" because, well, did I say it?, Mr. Boykin is gay. Openly so.

And the latest: Martino's auxiliary John M. Dougherty has informed several Irish-American associations in the diocese that Martino will shut down the cathedral during the St. Patrick's celebrations this year if the groups include any elected officials supporting abortion rights in the St. Pat's parade. Martino also threatens to withhold communion from any such officials involved in the St. Patrick's festivities.

Martino's hard-line approach failed to sway Catholic voters in his diocese in the November presidential elections. The diocese's central county, Lackawanna, voted nearly 2-to-1 for the Democratic ticket.

Oh, and as Rocco Palmo notes at the end of his discussion of Martino's latest pastoral overtures, late last month, the Scranton diocese announced that the falling numbers of priests in the diocese and straitened resources are forcing the diocese to close almost half its 209 parishes.

What's wrong with this picture? The smaller, purer church is definitely meaner, for one thing. And also definitely leaner.

And"pastoral" leadership of the ilk of Martino doesn't seem to be producing any noticeable renaissance in his church, despite the loud protests of Catholics of the right that the agenda of the purer and truer church is filling pews, seminaries, and religious houses.

Hallelujah, More Work

And on the religion front: Rocco Palmo has a bit of fun today parsing the election results to look at their significance for the American Catholic community and the bishops who exhibited "unprecedented episcopal boldness" (Palmo's phrase) in this election by condemning Mr. Obama
(http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com). As he notes,

For no shortage of churchfolk, the "nightmare" scenario has come to pass: the Vice President-elect of the United States... a Democrat... the first Catholic to hold the post... come January, a heartbeat away from the Oval Office...

...all while getting called out by his pastors -- and, in a handful of locales, barred from the Eucharist.

Oh, and he got reelected to the Senate, to boot. . . .

And (Palmo reminds us), only five days remain now until the bishops convene in Baltimore . . . .

Rocco Palmo aptly entitles his posting analyzing the election statistics “Scenes from a Repudiation"--a repudiation, because the election results provide incontrovertible evidence that a multitude of American Catholics have chosen to avoid many bishops' warning that we endanger our immortal souls by voting Democratic. Some tidbits:

"Scranton diocese's [presided over by Bishop Joseph Martino] main hub of Lackawanna County broke nearly 2-to-1 for the Democratic ticket, its second-largest population center veering blue by a 54-45 margin, or close to 10,000 votes."

"Colorado [where Archbishop Charles Chaput holds sway]... Presidential Blue... by 8 points."

"Most Catholic state in the union, per capita [Rhode Island]? Obama-Biden, 2-to-1."

"The breakdown -- well, the numerical one -- could go on... and on... and on... but the message is probably clear enough." Indeed. The crozier shaking of prelates such as Chaput and Martino did not work this time around.

Meanwhile, across the world, our Catholic cousins in Australia are having a bit of fun at the expense of said bishops on the lively Catholica Australia blog. As one blogger there notes, the Commonweal blog noted last evening,

Networks call Ohio for Obama. Game over. I never thought I would see this day. I guess (if certain Bishops are right) hell is going to be a little more crowded, but the company there will be good (www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=2480).

To which a Catholica Australia blogger responds

Mainly bishops. Think of all the solemn High Masses in Latin they will have each day. Maybe the lace isn't fire proof, but the incense will be easy to light (www.catholica.com.au/forum/forum_entry.php?id=18585).

The bishops appear to have their work cut out for them, come Baltimore.

The Bitter End: Bishops' Politicking Continued to Election Day

Rocco Palmo’s list of U.S. Catholic bishops who have now weighed in against the Democratic candidate for president and for the Republican one grows longer as election day is upon us (http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com). And as I begin to talk about that topic, I’d like to add a gloss to yesterday’s statistics re: the bishops’ partisanship.

As I noted yesterday, Palmo's list suggests that some 28% of Catholic bishops in the U.S. had by yesterday made statements—more or less, but who’s truly in doubt about what these mean?—instructing faithful Catholics to vote for Mr. McCain. Lest blog readers think that this percentage is low, I’d like to make a few observations about the statistics.

As Palmo and others commenting on the role the bishops are playing in this election have noted, it’s important to recognize that, for every bishop making a pro-McCain statement, there has been another noting that the Catholic church does not endorse candidates. To justify their refusal to exercise partisanship, a number of bishops have pointed to the “Faithful Citizenship” document released by the U.S. bishops in 2007, which was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the U.S. bishops.

The document reminds Catholics that the formation of voters' s consciences requires attention to a wide range of issues, including but not limited to the “non-negotiable” issues of abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage. Many commentators have seen “Faithful Citizenship” as a compromise document that tries to hold together those who view abortion as the overarching issue for Catholic voters, and those who maintain that Catholics serve the common good more productively when they pursue a “seamless garment” approach to life issues.

Those who see “Faithful Citizenship” as a compromise document are correct. Unfortunately, however, a sizeable (and apparently growing) proportion of the American bishops adhere to the "non-negotiables" approach of bishops such as Joseph Martino of Scranton, about whom I have blogged several times in this election cycle (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/10/talking-pro-life-or-acting-pro-life.html, http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/10/talking-pro-life-or-acting-pro-life.html).

As my postings about Martino’s surprise appearance at a political discussion group at St. John’s parish in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, on 19 October state, when Bishop Martino interrupted the forum, he announced, “No USCCB document is relevant in this diocese. The USCCB doesn’t speak for me. The only relevant document . . . is my letter.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) document to which Bishop Martino was referring was “Faithful Citizenship.” When a bishop can boldly and flatly reject the validity of a document issued by an entire conference of bishops (of which he is a member), and when no brother bishop raises his voice in fraternal correction, I think we are not misguided in concluding that the U.S. Bishops’ Conference—as a body—has, for weal or for woe, succeeded in representing itself as the friend of the Republican party and the enemy of Democrats.

Whether this is a true impression or a false one, it’s an impression that the American public in general has, regarding where the bishops stand. And the repeated statements of bishops such as Martino, or, in the last several days, Finn of Kansas City, Curtiss of Omaha, and Burke of St. Louis-Rome are doing nothing to dispel that notion. Indeed, a clear picture is emerging in which—and this is a crucial point to note—as a body, as a conference of bishops, the U.S. Catholic bishops continue to play partisan politics in this election even more than in previous elections.

And the partisanship is grossly on the side of the Republican party. It is driving wedges between the pastoral leaders of the Catholic church in the U.S. and those pitifully few Catholics who continue going to church faithfully and paying any attention at all to what the bishops say. In an interview yesterday with Chris Stigall of KCMO radion station in Kansas City, Bishop Robert Finn endorses McCain outright (www.lifenews.com/state3615.html). He states, "I don't think any Catholic can in good conscience" vote for Obama.

In a statement issued two days ago, Archbishop Elden Curtiss endorses McCain in similar terms (www.lifenews.com/state3605.html). As the Lifenews.com report of Bishop Curtiss’s statement notes,

Yet another Catholic bishop has drawn the line on how Catholics should vote in the upcoming election and Catholic Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Obama, Nebraska says Catholics should vote pro-life. He says there is no reason to support a pro-abortion candidate, like Barack Obama.

In an interview yesterday with Inside the Vatican correspondent Andrew Rabel, Archbishop Raymond Burke continues his rhetoric about the Democratic party as the “party of death” and continues promoting the “non-negotiables” approach (http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com). Burke states,

It is not my intention to engage in partisan politics . . . .The Democratic Party, however has, over the years, put forth and defended a political agenda which is grievously anti-life, favoring the right to procured abortion and "marriage" between persons of the same sex.

Overt partisanship. By leading prelates of the American Catholic church. Overt rejection of documents issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. With brother bishops standing by in silence. Giving the impression to both Catholics and the nation at large that the bishops of the Catholic church in the United States endorse one political party. That they belong to one political party, as a trophy bought by that party and proudly displayed on its keychain.

I realize that in blogging about this today I am taking some of the luster from the elections. It is not my intent to do this. However, since the timing of the bishops’ meeting each year is so closely connected to the elections (and since the conversation is dictated, in part, by the outcome of those elections), I believe it is important to keep exploring this issue on election day.

It is important for American Catholics. It is important as well for the nation as a whole because the bishops have actively sought—a significant number of them—to throw the election. Finn’s statement came on the heels of polls showing that McCain had made inroads in the last several days in the key swing state of Missouri. To view his statement in isolation from that development, and as anything other than an obtrusive attempt of this bishop to influence Catholic voting in his state, would be naïve.

What the bishops continue doing in this election is important for American Catholics because their partisanship is bound together with their abdication—as a bishops’ conference—of good pastoral leadership of American Catholics. I will not rehearse the arguments I have made to that effect, the arguments that the bishops are, on the whole, failed leaders of their flock. Those arguments remain compelling, in my view, and the last-minute intervention of some bishops in this election only makes them more compelling.

What I do want to probe a little more now, though, is the why of the bishops’ intervention, of their meddling, of their overt partisanship. To my mind, their panic as polls indicate that their party will probably not carry the day today is about much more than abortion.

It’s about power. It’s about misuse of power. It’s about back-room deals and boardroom tables. It’s about their ability to sit with powerful men who guard their backs, and to sway those men and be swayed by them.

It’s about getting into bed with rich donors and power-wielding politicians. And not knowing how to quit them, when they no longer have the ability to coerce others to do their bidding.

And, as all this has gone on in recent years, millions of American Catholics have walked away, shaking their heads. Thousands of American Catholics have reported abuse by priests when they were children, and have, on the whole, been treated cruelly and shamefully by these men too busy with the boardrooms and the back rooms even to meet with those wounded brothers and sisters.

Too busy to sit with hurting members of their flocks. Too busy cutting deals and power-brokering to see the faces of the wounded of their flocks, or to seek out the faces of the absent. Too enthralled by power, influence, money to spend time with those who lack power, influence, and money—that is, with the majority of American Catholics.

Too busy to walk among the flock. Inclined, in fact, on the whole to slam the door if a member of the flock who is not rich, influential (and Republican) comes to the door.

This is downright disgraceful. It’s scandalous. In the extreme. And, barring a miracle, those of us who have watched the bishops carry on this way for some years now have very little hope that their meeting in Baltimore will effect any change at all in this anti-pastoral behavior.

Even if their party loses this election, which many people around the world are seeing as a significant referendum regarding the direction the country has taken. Which is to say, a referendum about the route the American bishops have taken as pastoral leaders, to the extent that they have gotten into bed with our current leaders and don't know how to quit them.

Especially if their party loses. If their party loses, the lines are in fact likely to harden, the lessons to go unheeded. Even if the Spirit of God might possibly be speaking to the bishops through their unheeded, wounded flock at this significant turning point in our history.

Even when they pray the Magnificat together in assembly, remembering with Mary that God inevitably casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly . . . . That's how history works in God's hands, isn't it? In God's hands.